The line in Dr. Helen’s column from last week, like all truly effective, deceptive things, is technically true. But one is tempted to glean something from it that is unsupported and misleading, and the observant reader must cast a jaundiced eye toward Dr. Helen, because it seems this might have been deliberate.

This letter could have been written by many women around the United States.

What I think is common about the letter, is that it concerns a bride who is now earning more money than her groom. What is open to question in my mind, is the much-prophesied blistering angst from the hubby…

Dr. Helen, I’ve recently found myself bringing in more money than my husband, and it’s causing problems. It’s not because he doesn’t work hard — he works more than me (which probably just adds insult to injury). I’ve been looking up this topic online. Everywhere I look it is just women commenting on how to make the man feel better, but I’d like to hear from men on what works for them. Thanks — Please don’t use my name! For my husbands sake!

From where I sit, this letter could not have been written by many women around the country. This letter stands alone. Or it would…if the author came out and said her husband is suffering from a bruised ego. Go back and read it a second time, very carefully. Really, really read it, every sentence, every syllable. She doesn’t come out and say this. It’s causing problems. Don’t include my name for my husband’s sake.

This is a fatal flaw, at least toward the purpose I have in mind for this letter. It stands as a solitary piece of evidence, thus far, available to pose a challenge to Thing I Doubt #1 which is:

1. Men who have problems with their wives making more money
I’m continually told this is a major cause of trouble in paradise, but I notice the people who tell me this are very seldom personally involved. In fact the only exception to that, is when it’s the wife who earned more…and in those situations it would be more accurate to say she had fantasies about earning more. Now, I’m a man. Having a wife or live-in who earned more than me, would be a real first-time experience. It strikes me, at first blush, as a rather pleasant change of pace. I know other men. None of them, not a single one, has demonstrated any attitude about this remarkably different from my own.

Eight months after I jotted down that gem, the New York Times trumpeted yet another pocket-protector lab-coat clipboard propeller-beanie egghead study, seemingly unrelated at first glance, but tightly interwoven with Thing I Doubt #1 once you take the time to inspect — which says…

Last year, a team of researchers added a novel twist to something known as a time-use survey. Instead of simply asking people what they had done over the course of their day, as pollsters have been doing since the 1960s, the researchers also asked how people felt during each activity. Were they happy? Interested? Tired? Stressed?

Not surprisingly, men and women often gave similar answers about what they liked to do (hanging out with friends) and didn’t like (paying bills). But there were also a number of activities that produced very different reactions from the two sexes — and one of them really stands out: Men apparently enjoy being with their parents, while women find time with their mom and dad to be slightly less pleasant than doing laundry.

Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist working with four psychologists on the time-use research team, figures that there is a simple explanation for the difference. For a woman, time with her parents often resembles work, whether it’s helping them pay bills or plan a family gathering. “For men, it tends to be sitting on the sofa and watching football with their dad,” said Mr. Krueger, who, when not crunching data, enjoys watching the New York Giants with his father.

This intriguing — if unsettling — finding is part of a larger story: there appears to be a growing happiness gap between men and women.

Two new research papers, using very different methods, have both come to this conclusion. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, economists at the University of Pennsylvania (and a couple), have looked at the traditional happiness data, in which people are simply asked how satisfied they are with their overall lives. In the early 1970s, women reported being slightly happier than men. Today, the two have switched places.

Mr. Krueger, analyzing time-use studies over the last four decades, has found an even starker pattern. Since the 1960s, men have gradually cut back on activities they find unpleasant. They now work less and relax more.

Over the same span, women have replaced housework with paid work — and, as a result, are spending almost as much time doing things they don’t enjoy as in the past. Forty years ago, a typical woman spent about 23 hours a week in an activity considered unpleasant, or 40 more minutes than a typical man. Today, with men working less, the gap is 90 minutes.

As is the case with all other male-female issues, once you’re untethered from concerns about political correctness this is all easy to predict. More women are working now, for money, than in times past — that much is beyond question by anybody. And since we’re being politically incorrect, let’s be honest. Women started working more because a bunch of women got together and whined. Sorry, it’s true. We can debate whether this is a good thing, how good the women are at their jobs, if they can do those jobs as well as men can. But they didn’t get these jobs because a hundred million men woke up one morning and decided to be a bunch of Steve Trevors ready to appreciate the positive attributes of their Wonder Women with squeaky-clean, sincere and asexual adoration. Nope. The women complained. They demonstrated, they screeched, they intimidated, they bullied, the beat on brows. For years. The activists among them did everything they could to force society to function the way they thought it should.

So let’s be honest — women started working because they…or at least, the activists amongst them….did a lot of whining. They whined, and as a result of the whining got more work to do. Whining people got more work…what happens next, class?

How in the world could we avoid lots of whining about the work? In what universe? How would that be logically possible?

When has a whiner ever gotten something the whiner was whining about wanting, and stopped whining?

Now do spare me your peevish comments and e-mails. Nowhere in the above did I say all women with jobs, got those jobs because they whined. Comments about individuals, comments about groups — learn the difference. Also, nowhere in the above did I say women enjoyed a monopoly of whining. I wish like hell that they did. I could listen to a whining woman all day long, but a whining man has a nauseating effect and lately it seems we’re buried in ’em. So no. I’m not even going to say there’s a correlative relationship between the act of whining and our fairer sex. But more women are working now than in times past, and it wasn’t because someone said “the gentlemen in this job just aren’t getting me the results I want, I’m going to put a woman in there.” No, we created a post-feminist modern society in which executives felt their careers were in jeopardy if they didn’t do something to prove they weren’t sexist. Traditionally-male roles were filled with females, not because people were hopeful about the results once this took place, but because they were fearful of the consequences if it did not. That, and…I’d like to think…much of the time the hiring manager was familiar with the skills of the individual and didn’t care if she was female. I’m sure that’s happened. A few times. I’d like to think that happened most of the time. But I dunno. The coercion-based cause-and-effect, the culturally-based language of horse-heads-in-beds, to anyone who was alive and aware in the middle of it, is undeniable. You do this the way we want. Or else.

Gawd I hate disclaimers. I hate that they’re necessary.

Anyway, now women have lots of jobs, and they’re beginning to dominate the higher-paying jobs. A job is something you do for money. Which — statistically, this is the tendency — is something you probably wouldn’t do were it not for the money. If there’s more money involved, it will be connected to something you’d be even more reluctant to do if it weren’t for the money. Yes, I’ve heard the adage — do what you love. There is truth in this, but it doesn’t work beyond a certain point. I know. I’ve done things I love for money, and sooner or later the money rests on you doing what you love in a way you’d much rather not. You’d rather do it some other way. But if you do it that other way the money won’t be forthcoming. And so, next year if not this one, all jobs become…a job. Something you’d rather not be doing, to get the money that you won’t get if you do something you’d much rather be doing.

Hate to shock the establishment once again, but there isn’t that much of a male-female split here. In marriage, or not, I’ve shared households with more than my share of woman. I’ve always generated the higher income. You don’t spring out of bed everyday and say to yourself “Oh boy! I’m the primary breadwinner! Life is good!” Life doesn’t work that way.

Let’s be blunt: I have a lot more sympathy for the ladies now that they’re whining about being the primary breadwinners, than I did back when they were whining about jobs being held by mostly-men. Once the household as it exists in this minute rests, sixty or seventy percent, on you, the sad truth of it is that everyone else can goof off to their heart’s content should they so choose. And you can’t.

But are the gentlemen complaining? Dr. Helen’s letter-writer doesn’t come out and explicitly say so. I damn well wouldn’t. And one day, I actually posed the question to a group of us while we were waiting for a table in a Sushi restaurant during a weekday lunch — said party being, at the time, all-guy. Would any of you be among the angst-ridden patriarchs who’d have a problem with it if your ladies out-earned you? Would any of you know any other gentlemen who might react that way? And the answers came back. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope, and nope.

So relatively early on, this became Thing I Doubt #1. I doubted it, because I had not seen it. And I still haven’t. I don’t believe in it. I think the fella whose forehead is pulsating and throbbing with jealous rage that his bride brings home a bigger paycheck, is a work of fiction. I think it’s an act of projection. I think what we’ve done, is raise our daughters to adulthood constantly beating them up over how other people feel…at all times. To the point where our women imagine problems of resentment to exist where, in fact, they do not. And in so doing we’ve made it needlessly difficult for our women to be happy. We’ve told them when they earn less than men, they should feel slighted, and when they earn more they should feel guilty.

Now I see (via Boortz) the rest of the world is coming around to view things my way.

It seems we’ve officially left “Leave It to Beaver” behind.

In the new dynamics of home economics, it’s not just that men want women to contribute financially to a marriage: The vast majority of men say they wouldn’t even mind if their wives brought home the bigger paycheck.
:
After years of being conditioned to believe that men relish the role of primary provider, researchers were surprised to discover that just 12 percent of men surveyed said they’d mind if their wife earned more than they do, and in general men seemed happy to share the breadwinner role. [emphasis mine]

Years of being conditioned to believe…rather shocking, I think, that the article comes right out and admits this. But in my world, it’s like a big fat duh.

It’s all a big crock. A crock designed to make women feel guilty. Somewhere, I’m firmly convinced, there is a real study kept under lock and key, a study that says women pay more money for newspapers and glossy magazines when they’re feeling guilty than when they don’t. Well, if women want to feel guilty, I can tell them when to feel guilty: If they share a house with me, don’t work, and let me come home to a kitchen garbage can that is full. In my real life we have that working the other way…my sweetie works later than I do sometimes, and I told her on the days she does, she won’t come home to a full garbage can. I was doing pretty good at holding up that bargain, and lately I’ve slipped a couple times.

But let’s be clear on this. If she got a massive raise and started making more than me, I’d think that was freakin’ awesome. I also think it would be fair. And I don’t know of a single stud anywhere on the entire civilized part of the globe, who’d say anything different. The disgruntled, second-fiddle breadwinner hubby, squirming away, working himself into a lather and an early grave in his stew of spite and bile, popular a legend as he may be, is just that and nothing more. And not a very good one. It’s like a husband wishing his wife would win more arguments by crying, have sex with more of his friends, or run up the credit cards to a higher balance. I’ve been doubting him for a very long time. I believe in the Loch Ness Monster before I believe in him. Welcome to the club, all you late-comer doubters.

The guidance from the July 1943 issue of Transportation Magazine comes to our attention via FARK…and lest anyone question some shenanigans a-goin’ on, be advised the Oracle of Snopes smiles upon it.

I’m particularly fond of the following selection of bullets…

1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they’re less likely to be flirtatious, they need the work or they wouldn’t be doing it, they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.
:
4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination – one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.
:
6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they’ll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.
:
8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.

You’re looking to me for further comment? C’mon. I do need a wheelbarrow to carry around my balls — but not a freakin’ minivan. There’s a time to pull the pin, there’s a time to walk away…even if one allows oneself a chuckle or two.

Update 2/24/08: Just an interesting thought exercise.

It goes without saying the above isn’t even close to fitness for reprinting now, so it’s clear we have a “line”; you can step over it — in which case those with “dirty hands” will be compelled to apologize and re-apologize, and probably see their careers ended anyway — and you can fall short of it and walk away clean. And so the thought exercise is to imagine a duplicate of the above material appearing in a modern magazine, Cosmopolitan being ideal, with the genders flipped.

Think about an article within the glossy pages offering a few bullets of advice. Now that women have sought for, and acquired, power, envision a lady in management who supervises an all-female staff, thinking about hiring her first man. Some re-imagining and re-morphing of the Transportation Magazine article is then aimed at that theoretical female-management construct.

Where is the line in that scenario? Way freakin’ out there. The 1943 article is torn to shreds in the time machine that is the web page…simply by, it could be inferred, observing that difference between men and women. “You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology” and all that — definitely over the line. For the female supervisor to be advised that she needs to make some allowances for male psychology…nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. It has ample precedence. Hand me a stack of ten old Cosmos, chosen at random, and I can prove it faster than you think.

Actually, a quick Google of “male ego” within Cosmopolitan returns six results, all of which appear to be satisfactory examples. So on that side, the line clearly extends well beyond this. I would expect in our imaginary scenario, you wouldn’t even have to worry about it until you got into George Carlin’s Seven Words. Maybe not even then.

Conclusions? Perhaps it’s belaboring the obvious, but we can exclude the possibility that people think for themselves on issues like this. For a gazillion of us to think on it as indepedent beings, and autonomously nurture a bias that remains consistent across so many of us that lists so sharply to the same side, is quite out of the realm of serious consideration.

Our ladies are sensitive. Our gentlemen are poorly organized, thick-skinned to the point of cluelessness. There really aren’t too many rules on how we are to be treated, nor is there any need for such rules. Not unless the gentlemen in question are members of some externally designated hypersensitive class.

There is a bittersweet irony here. We got all these rules about how to treat our ladies when it became socially unsuitable to communicate any comparison between males and females that reached any conclusion other than equivalent. To say men could do anything that woman couldn’t do, was to shoulder the blame for all nasty things done toward the fairer sex, across a variety of cultures, all around the globe for thousands of years — it was to identify oneself as a contributing agent toward the problem. And yet, to infer that women might be able to do things men couldn’t do, was almost equally atrocious. It became regarded, on a social level, as an exercise in calling out “womyn’s work” like cleaning and sewing, nevermind if this was notably different from the speaker or writer’s intent.

And so outside of the smartest and most craven option, avoiding the subject altogether, the only one left was to pronounce women and men as the same.

From that convention, implied but not articulated outright, we dredge up our theatrical apoplexy to be directed toward the Transportation Magazine article.

That’s my explanation for the double-standard, addressed to a space alien, man who woke up from a centuries-long slumber, or some other hypothetical being capable of rational thought but unaccustomed to the social ravages of recent past generations. There may be a way to provide this rational explanation that makes our recent enlightenment look like something other than………self-contradictory and patently silly. But I don’t know what that might be.

Therein lies the intellectual danger of deploring things for reasons that just “should be obvious.” A lot of the time, it leaves so much unexplained, that when reason is ejected few are left in a position to realize this is what has taken place.

Words fail me.

Actually, the blatant double-standard isn’t nearly as surprising as this thing about using the C-word earlier that morning. On Today? Was this perhaps something like “carrot” or “claustrophobe”…?

Going by the evidence available, feminism this year has something to do with being rude & crude. I wonder if anyone, anywhere, from any point on the ideological spectrum, can explain how and/or why.

The year 2008 will no doubt see hundreds of thousands of divorces, and has better than even odds of getting up into the millions on that statistic. The divorce rate rises and falls according to a variety of different causal factors, and it can be interesting to noodle some of those out, but I’d like to zero in on one in particular.

Let us first flash back across several years to a horrific and unusual crime. In late 1993, a toddler in Liverpool, UK was separated from his mother at a shopping mall. His mother momentarily distracted, he had been led out of the mall by a couple of truant boys. Shockingly, the moment was captured on CCTV, images from which became especially sad and poignant after what happened next.

…at some point Mrs Bulger realised that her son had gone missing. The two boys had taken him by the hand and led him out of the precinct. This moment was captured on a CCTV camera at 15:39.

The boys took Bulger on a 2½ mile (4 km) walk. At one point, they led him to a canal, where he sustained some injuries to his head and face, after apparently being dropped to the ground. Later on in their journey, a witness reported seeing Bulger being kicked in the ribs by one of the boys, to encourage him along.

During the entire walk, the boys were seen by 38 people, some of whom noticed an injury to the child’s head and later recalled that he seemed distressed. Others reported that Bulger appeared happy and was seen laughing, the boys seemingly alternating between hurting and distracting him. A few members of the public challenged the two older boys, but they claimed they were looking after their younger brother, or that he was lost and that they were taking him to the police station, and were allowed to continue on their way. They eventually led Bulger to a section of railway line near Walton, Merseyside.

From the facts disclosed at trial, at this location one of the boys threw blue modelling paint on Bulger’s face. They kicked him and hit him with bricks, stones and a 22 lb (10 kg) iron bar. They then placed batteries in his mouth. Before they left him, the boys laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble, in hopes that a passing train would hit him and make his death appear to be an accident. Two days later, on the Sunday of the next week, Bulger’s body was discovered; a forensic pathologist later testified that he had died before his body was run over by an oncoming train which sliced through him.

So we have a small toddler at first experiencing that moment that occasionally visited itself on all of us who had mothers who shopped when we were tiny…I’ve lost my Mom. He wanders around and eventually bumps into some big kids, who take him by the hand, and he trusts them. Why shouldn’t he. After they make him walk much farther, I’m sure, than he’s ever walked before, he starts to cry after sensing something is wrong. At that point it gets very wrong indeed, because they start to punch him and kick him.

BUT — and this is the point I want to make — the physical abuse doesn’t begin in earnest, until the treatment with the blue modelling paint. And this is why the murder trial became sensational, complicated and chock full of debate, sensible & otherwise. The guilt of the murderers was easily established; their sense of right & wrong, was what evaded conclusive answer.

You see how this works? They abused him somewhat…then they disfigured him, made him funny-looking…after that, the abuse became lethal. Make things alien, make things appear to be unlike yourself, and then you have a much easier time destroying them. You can do it and still feel good about yourself.

In sum, the truants were given light treatment because the Brits are so incredibly “civilised” their government recognized in the boys the darker nature that lurks under the skin of everybody. My personal view on this? I remain steadfast in my conviction that we exist in proximity to each other according to an involuntary social contract, and Clause One of that social contract call for respect for human life — break that clause, and if someone had to pay for your breakage of it, then out you go. But the Brits aren’t like me. They ruled the original trial to be unfair, further ruled that the “boys” were “no longer a threat to society,” gave them new names, moved them to an undisclosed locality and let ’em start their lives all over again.

It’s a ruling that can be handed down only by magistrates enjoying personal guarantees of never, ever having to be impacted or affected by such insidious evil.

But the crime itself is something I have always found to be fascinating. And especially horrifying. The truants wanted to be unkind, and so they took the step of making their victim cosmetically different — at that point lethal unkindness was possible. And then, the gutless british officials scrambled around looking for reasons to be merciful. And so they recognized a human failing in the perpetrators and further recognized — accurately — that this failing applies to all of us. The judicial system of the UK, in effect, accomplished the exact opposite of what the young men on trial did. The murderous boys made a designated target unlike them so they could kill it; the british pansies made their designated target more like them, so they could grant leniency. In both cases, an emotional/intellectual ritual of sorts was carried out for the purpose of making a defined action more acceptable.

And then, in both cases, the defined action was pursued regardless. After a ritual that, in hindsight, was just plain silly.

Okay now that it is clear how we all work, let’s take a look at what we have been doing to men. Marc H. Rudov, one month ago, wrote up some observations on how advertising is done in early 21st-century America. We’ve noticed this and opined about it many times here, and Rudov is even less sympathetic to it than we are…since the advertising executives, in our view, are just doing their jobs. We are confident there must be some consumers of products and services out there, mostly female but perhaps some of the self-loathing effeminate male kind, who are more likely to make a purchase if they see men ridiculed. We figure this has got to be the case. But regardless of that, we remain receptive to Rudov’s point that whether they have commercial incentive to engage such a campaign or not, the ad execs are being craven, unscrupulous and ultimately foolish by engaging in it.

Today’s TV spots are moronizing and marginalizing men, with impunity. Why do they persist? Quite simply, most Americans — including a lot of self-hating men — approve. The genesis of every TV campaign begins by matching an advertiser’s sales objectives with an assumption about the zeitgeist. The advertiser bets that a TV campaign’s message will resonate with its targeted customers, who, hopefully, will respond by purchasing the promoted products or services. When earning my MBA at Boston University, I obviously missed the lecture on how to boost revenues of cameras and mutual funds by alienating men and fathers.

Sony & Fidelity Investments

That explains why I was incredulous when Sony aired its “Father Is a Horse’s Ass Commercial,” believing that insulting men would boost sales of the Cyber-shot® camera. The campaign didn’t last long, but I have yet to read about any Sony marketing execs or any BBDO advertising execs who lost their jobs over it. Imagine what those child actors thought about their own fathers as they were learning their lines, reciting them on camera, and watching the finished commercial. What were the impressions on their young minds and souls?

In another misandry-for-profit example, Fidelity Investments and Arnold Worldwide, both of Boston, teamed up to produce four spots designed to lure female investors by denigrating men. When you watch them, ask yourself this question: Why would women feel good about doing business with a company that trashes men?

1. Fidelity’s Moron: Misusing the Leafblower
2. Fidelity’s Moron: Parking the Car with Wife
3. Fidelity’s Moron: Playing with Child’s Toys
4. Fidelity’s Moron: Playing Pingpong with Daughter

How do you feel when you watch Fidelity’s spots? Are you enraged? Are you indifferent? Are you amused? Are you motivated to send a check to Fidelity? Your answer reveals a lot about you and your attitudes about men.

So we have two problems here. One, there are people, oh yes indeed there are, who do indeed feel “motivated to send a check to Fidelity” when they see men ridiculed in this way. And these people must be united by a market that is on the rise. Like, for example, female investors? Speculative gals just looking for a service that will…respect them for their female competence?

Perhaps looking for a safe place to put some excess cash? Cash they received out of…a divorce, perhaps?

And the other problem is the Bulger phenomenon. You paint someone’s face, make them alien and it is far easier to direct your destructive energies in their direction. Easier to justify.

I note, with no small amount of dread, that we have the makings of a vicious circle going on here. The first of the two problems I identified, provides the funding and the initiative for this “doofus dad” advertising campaign, out of divorces. Oh yes, you did know divorce was an industry, didn’t you? Well yes, it is. I can attest to this personally. And the second of those two problems, provides an incentive for more divorces, out of this childish spiteful advertising campaign. Why yes, mister nameless faceless television commercial…now that you mention it, my dopey husband does have something in common with that brainless boob you’ve put together in your 30-second spot. Maybe I could do better.

But I called this campaign “ultimately foolish.” Why is that? Because it all boils down to people…at least the ones with nuts & penises…even the ones that still have money…not knowing how long they’re going to have it. Wake up one morning, wife decides it’s time for a divorce, you’re pretty much gonna have one. And you’ll come out of it without any money. That’s the reality. Which means, of course, they’re less willing to spend it.

And so our gentlemen become far more frugal consumers than ever before. Why make commitments if you don’t know, day to day, whether or not you’ll possess the solvency required to meet them? As a result, it shouldn’t surprise anybody that advertising is aimed toward women. Women spend money. They’re the ones who can.

Essentially, our advertisers have made their own nightmare. Every spot they produce is going to waste money, unless it systematically ignores and actively alienates 49% of the population…which means it must waste money no matter what…and they’ve made it this way. So they must do more of it.

Update: This would inject further scope-creep into a post that it seems to me already has much…but it’s regretful that 2007 didn’t stick around long enough to see me finally bookmark this, and I wanted to finally get ‘er done somewhere. More here. I’ll comment later.

I hope 2008 sees the end of this brand of feminism, I really do. The subject of the link in question is Page 8 of possible reasons Home Improvement jumped the shark, and “Guest” writes in with…

The show jumped with the “sandwich episode” where Jill really started to assert her own special brand of aggressive feminism. It was angering to watch Jill call her son a sexist because his girlfriend did his housework; the problem couldn’t possibly be on the girlfriend’s end, it must be the EVIL MISOGYNIST BRAD at fault because he LET her do his housework. In the end, everything was resolved, of course, when Jill converted everyone over to her point of view, aka the right one, including dimwitted Tim, who, of course, buckled under his wife’s demands yet again. Was there ever a single episode where Tim said, “Tough crap, Jill, this time it’s my way”?

I was watching this episode with my ten-year-old son, and found myself answering some complicated questions.

See, here’s the deal: Brad’s new girlfriend makes him sandwiches. Sometimes he (politely) asks her, and sometimes she offers. Jill the Mom is having a hissy-fit about it. Everybody else thinks it’s just fine. Girlfriend included.

I recall vividly at about the halfway mark, the point of view that I know to be the “right” one, was nailed…perfect bulls-eye…and then ritually abandoned. The son reminded his mother, in quite a civil manner, that if the objective was to uphold and respect the individual preferences of women, it should be noted the individual preference of his girlfriend was to make him a sandwich. So by interfering with that, Jill cemented her position as the one person who was interfering with womens’ choice, when everybody else, was not. She didn’t have a comeback to that one. The scriptwriters solved that in short order by simply abandoning that train of thought and pursuing some whacky slapstick courtesy of Husband Tim.

Of course the lone hold-out Jill is in the “right.” Should the long precedent of Home Improvement episodes not be sufficient to convince someone of this, the episode’s conclusion pounds the final nail into the coffin holding any doubts. She does, as “Guest” says, convert everyone to her point of view.

I do think there’s something amiss when Brad starts to count on his girlfriend making sandwiches. But when you’re insinuating something evil and wrong is happening whenever a lady does something to lighten a gentleman’s heavy load, a line is being crossed. If she’s serving some ideal higher and more noble than helping her fella out for the sake of helping him, well, I would just hope that ideal is higher and more noble than sitting on the couch watching her favorite soap opera munching on a sack of chips. And regardless of what that ideal is, I’d say they’re just about finished as a couple.

And that goes for him too.

There simply isn’t anything glorious or morally pristine about refusing to help people, especially people with whom you’re supposed to be sharing your life. Sorry, but I have to agree if we’re looking for points at which the show jumped the shark, I’d say 6×23 is a great place to start.

Sorry if I’m taking this way to seriously. Hey, looks to me like they did. Here it is just eleven years later, and this paleofeminism has a dated feeling to it already. Hyper-dated. Like Dick van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore sleeping in separate beds…that kind of dated. So maybe we’re past this already.

God, I seriously hope so. My sweetheart can run circles around me in the sandwich-making department.

Strap yourself into your time machine, we’re going back to ’03…it’s the Gender Genie. Paste in some text, tell the Genie whether it’s fiction or non-fiction…and it’ll tell you what kind of plumbing you have.

It’s gloriously inaccurate so far, but the algorithm is interesting and seems to have some merit. Might just need a few simple adjustments.

H/T

Some idjit spammer left some idjit spam on a three-year old post on Rick’s blog, but I’m glad they did because otherwise I never would have found out about something that is really a gem. Perhaps, in 2007, we’re a little bit more ready for this than we were back in ’04 — when we were seriously thinking about electing a double-talking soldier-slanderer to be our next President in the middle of a war.

The material was originally hosted, it would seem, somewhere here. It is no longer to be found. I’m sure Rick is around for the long haul, but I thought it would be good to bring the actual text in anyway…the innernets is nuthin’, if they isn’t all about change…

Right Thinking Girl has a host of tips on being a man in 2004. 10 of them here for your reading pleasure:

* Eat meat. Real men eat meat; you need the protein and iron. It makes your muscles stronger and there’s something very sexxxy and primative about watching a guy eat a steak.

* Work out. A man doing pushups…. nothing sexier. NOTHING.

* We will expect you to defend us if someone breaks into our home. You may have to kill somebody. If you’re not prepared for that, please tell us during the dating phase, before we sleep with you, so we can reject you and find someone else with better instincts.

* Know the directions. I’m not saying you have to stop and ask for directions. Lisa and I both agree it’s very hot when a guy is lost and finds his way all by himself. We love logical brains. Don’t let bitchy women bully you into asking for directions, or into doing anything else you don’t want to do.

* Let us hit your biceps as much as we want. We’re fascinated by them because no matter how much we work out, ours aren’t going to be as big and sexy as yours. It’s comforting to just ball up our fist and gently punch that really tight muscle. It reminds us how big and strong you are.

* Own a gun. Or at least a baseball bat. Or be as big as Vin Diesel. We want to feel safe.

* Do not put up with nagging. From anyone. It’s emasculating and it never accomplishes anything. (Ladies, either learn to live with it or shut up.)

* Valentine’s Day is a great time for flowers and stuff but we know you’re doing it because of peer pressure. Better to bring the flowers on a really bad day to cheer us up, and then doing something else entirely for Valentine’s Day.

* Be nice to other women but don’t flirt. It makes us cranky and you can’t get away with it because you’re pretty much under global surveillance (yes, even you). You do it and we’ll find out and it’ll be a nasty evening. Just be a gentleman.

* Help us with unweildly grocery bags, open the door for us (every single time), and say please and thank you. Manners are important. But be careful not to be her slave. You’re a man, not a servant. You’re supposed to protect us, love us, and care for us, but not be so worshipful that your body no longer produces testosterone.

She also has a ton of tips on being a woman in 2004:

* Do not nag him. He doesn’t need to hear your whiney little voice complaining about something he doesn’t want to change. Just sssshhh!

* Dress like a girl. They like us because we’re girls, not miniature boys. Skirts are so popular in spring and summer for a reason. Not only are they much cooler than pants, it gives boys ideas. They imagine that the easier access means something.

* Don’t fall into the habit of wearing sweats and a t-shirt around the house. It can be cute but if it’s all he sees you in, he’s going to start looking at the Hooters girls a little too carefully.

* Never, ever talk badly about your man. Whatever fight you had, it’s between you two. Don’t tell your girlfriends, your boss, or God forbid, your mother.

* Don’t embarrass him in front of his friends. There’s a social order to everything and if you bitch at him in front of his friends, it emasculates him. Treat him like the prince he is, even if you’re seething with rage.

* Expect him to be kind, generous, loving, gentle and sweet, but don’t expect him to be happy about running your errands every day for a month. In other words, don’t take advantage of men’s naturally generous natures.

* Men don’t like complainers, especially if there is nothing to be done about it. Guys want to help, and if you give him a problem he can’t solve (ie, you have blisters and there’s no bandaids and you refuse to take off your shoes) it makes him feel like a failure.

* PMS is not an excuse to be mean to him. Don’t be short with him or be rude. Nicely tell him you feel bad and you’re much more likely to get what you need.

* Work out. They like our bods for a reason. Give them lots of reasons.

* Seduce him. Often. He’ll feel awesome and that can only be good for both of you.

That stuff’s just golden.

Seriously though — masculinity is a lot like fire. It can be very dangerous, but at the same time, we have life because it was here, and we have a life made enjoyable because it continues to be here. To ban masculinity is just as foolish as banning fire. Actually, if we banned fire, your car wouldn’t start.

This is why you so rarely hear anybody spewing out the actual sequence of words, “I want to ban masculinity.” They don’t have the, pardon my French, balls. It would sound as silly as it really is. But we still have people who want to do exactly that…and by carefully avoiding any discussion of what they really want, they get quite far.

The thing of it is, though — you really can extinguish a fire if you work at it long and hard enough, and the fuel supply is exhausted. Masculinity is an eternal flame. And the dirty little secret is, it’s appealing to everybody when danger is imminent. In the right situation, everybody sounds like Right Thinking Girl. From the funny noise downstairs in the middle of the night, to the darn pickle jar that just won’t open, it turns out that keeping us around isn’t that bad of an idea…even if some of us are too savage and uncouth to ever apologize for being what we are.

I’m no angel, and Gerard’s no fool…

…but good golly, he rushes in where even I fear to tread. And I have very little restraint about such things, so that’s saying something.

Buck didn’t like this bank ad, which personally I found to be about as amusing as it was supposed to have been. Better than most TV commercials, not as good as a Super Bowl ad, but okay all around. Something about it really rubbed him the wrong way though…something to do with naked women. Well, I’m not going to pretend I can’t see his point, since I can. Get into the frontward-located gray matter of a guy’s brain, and you’re going to find…a doppleganger of himself watching TV just for the sake of watching TV? Really?

Looks like a specimen of the fairer sex was retained for writing ad copy on a topic completely outside her expertise.

Speaking of which, Buck went on to find a Snopes article, and dealt the famous urban-legend web site some overdue criticism. The same sin committed all over again, really…the subject is how often guys think about sex, and to figure out what makes us tick, the famous urban legend debunkers entrusted the question to Barbara. I have to take Buck’s side again on this one. David Mikkelson is right-freakin’-there. David…Barbara. Husband…wife. Boy…girl. The subject is how the gentlemen think, and what bubbles to the front lobes of their melons, and how often. Barbara gets to write this one up? Why? What happened, was David in a horrible accident or something? If so, couldn’t you just bring in a temp?

On Snopes being overdue for some kind of a smackdown, my comments on Buck’s blog, stand. I don’t think they’re due for a big one…their reputation for diligence and accuracy is well-earned, overall. Sometimes, I just get the impression they don’t know their limits. Putting the lady in charge of writing about how men think, well, that’s just one more example.

She Who Does Her Laundry With Me, and I, were watching some over-sickly-sweet glurgy movie in which Katie Holmes goes out on a date with some studly dude…and I was given cause to think about this when the studly dude started telling Katie about the first time he rode his bike without training wheels. I checked the credits — under writing, you have girl-boy. Jessica and Jerry. You know, I’m inclined to think Jessica was responsible for that line. Us dudes, we do not talk about the first time we went riding without training wheels, when we’re out with our dates. Not on the first date, anyway. We don’t talk about how scared we were to go to kindergarten, or how we cried when we watched Ol’ Yeller, or Mom kissing the first boo-boos we got on our knees. We do not go there. Not gonna happen.

Of course, such movie credits would have me to believe Michael Crichton wrote this movie, with the help of some dude named Paul Attanasio and…yeah, sorry. Not buying it. You may recall there is this scene in which Demi Moore gives a hummer to Michael Douglas, and he’s like desperately fighting her off, to no avail, because she forces herself on him, and she finishes up while he yells no, no, no, no, no…

Nope. A man didn’t write that. I’ll bet my bottom dollar.

And that goes for this movie, while we’re talking about penises. Four writers. Four masculine names. These four studs put together a story, a movie is built around it, and in that movie a guy goes into an airport lavatory and starts talking audibly to his wang when he is by himself. Oh, I do believe there are a lot of chicks out there who would like to think we do this. It simply isn’t the case. Now, if the credits say four guys wrote this thing, well maybe there’s a grain of truth to it. But there had to be some help from somewhere. This project went co-ed, be it credited that way, or not. Otherwise, there’s just no way you’re going to have a guy standing around in solitude, getting ready to pee, talking out loud to his dick. I repeat: We don’t do this. We just don’t.

Next up, we have this fine thriller written by a couple of guys. It’s probably good enough to own, and maybe I should, I just never got around to buying it. One problem: The guy makes up with his girlfriend after promising never, ever, ever, ever, EVER to cheat on her, AGAIN. And then the psychotic chick dresses herself up as the girlfriend, sneaks into the guy’s hotel room and starts going down on him. He’s aaaaaaalmost there, and she reveals her true identity to him. He’s horrified, of course. Horrified! But just then, he finishes.

Um…you know, having not been in that particular situation, I’m not sure whether I can state definitively what a guy would or wouldn’t do. But it doesn’t seem credible, and it is highly doubtful the scene would play out the way it was shown on film. Could it really have been written by a couple of guys, directed by yet another guy, and assembled into the product that was delivered? Maybe. Perhaps. But obviously, the product was intended to appeal to women, and it’s probably fair to say it held more allegiance to female whim than to reality. To the feminine mindset, maybe this seems realistic, but to us dudes there is an abundance of suspension-of-disbelief taking place here to keep the story moving forward. Just can’t see it. The psycho-bitch could have finished the job and then let the guy know what was up. It would have worked just as well.

I could probably add a few more items to this list if I really worked on it. It seems, though, that just about everything, writing-wise, is credited to the guys, leaving a lot of questions unanswered. I suspect shenanigans are going on here, for reasons that may be now be evident. There’s something peculiar going on when women start writing about how men behave when women are not around; a lot of them seem to lack the ability to say, even to themselves, “this is just my opinion, but…” They know what they know, and they aren’t the least bit concerned about being wrong. They see us doing stuff, they describe what they see, and even if it’s a work of fiction it’s played out in front of a real man and we say — the who the what now? Nuh-huh, not me, not any guy I know.

Nevertheless, I’m willing to seriously entertain the possibility that guys really wrote all this nonsense. To entertain the remote possibility, I should say. With all those examples…except the one about Demi. Not buying that. Who thought it was a good idea to leave that the way it was, anyway?